A hack and slash action adventure, set in a fantasy pixel art environment. Play solo or co-op in this adventure from bottom to top of Castle Hammerwatch. Kill hordes of enemies with varied looks and features through four unique environments with traps, hidden secrets and puzzles.

September 16, 2014

The Hammerwatch expansion is finally released, it's a completely new campaign with new achievements and also updated menus and much more, below are the specific details.

Expansion:* Temple of the Sun - Fully new desert campaign, with new themes, bosses, challenges etc.

Achievements:* Added several new achievements for the desert campaign
* Added one for the completion of both campaigns

Modifiers:* Added faster (5x) mana-regen speed

Thief:* Rebalanced a few skills
* Skills do not cost money to use
* Thiefs skills costs more to buy
* Thief hits with both daggers
* Graphics when destroying projectiles

Paladin:* Graphics when blocking projectiles

Warlock:* Can't destroy projectiles

Music:* Better looping
* Crossfading between tracks

UI:* Added some small sprites for mana drain and slow effects, over the player. So it's easier to see when running w/o effects and lights

Menus:* Reworked several of the menus, they should all work in any of the selectable resolutions now.
* Better menu navigation
* Small help and info section, just some basic info for new players
* Added two more resolutions, one 4k and one super small
* Looked over some features, added a color switch button instead of clicking on the hero in the lobby
* Delete and Rename saved games
* Single and Multiplayer have different load menus and games are filtered
* More random backgrounds and you now see more of them, if anyone ever cared =)
* Logo is twice the resolution =)

Controls:* Rebalanced the auto-fire

Also, check out the maps people have been doing in the Workshop section, some are quiet nice both in SP and Coop!

Steam Greenlight

About This Game

A hack and slash action adventure, set in a fantasy pixel art environment. Play solo or co-op in this adventure from bottom to top of Castle Hammerwatch. Kill hordes of enemies with varied looks and features through four unique environments with traps, hidden secrets and puzzles.

Key Features

6 different classes, with unique features and skills

Character development through unlocks and upgrades

Hard, medium and easy of course

Customize difficulty with several different modifiers

Controller support, supports various different gamepads

Multiplayer COOP, for up to four players, online, LAN and local

PC, MAC and Linux support

Mod and editing support, make your own levels and change other things to your liking

I picked up a four pack the other day and tossed the extra copies to my friends. At one point about two hours in we found ourselves in a situation where we had to deal with one of those lurkers that shoot spikes from the ground. To give our ranger the space to kill the lurker we needed to clear away all of the giant worms that were guarding it. Our thief ran in, threw his knives to get the worms' attention, then ran back around the corner where my paladin was waiting. As the worms circled around the corner to chase our thief they ran into my sword, and while a couple managed to poison me, our priest standing behind me had his healing beam running to keep me topped off. We killed off the horde and the ranger gave us the all-clear that the lurker was dead and the rest of us joined him in the lurker's lair to clear out to the booty.

It was at this moment I said over voice chat to my friends, "This game is awesome. Do you want to know what dungeon-crawler I believe Hammerwatch is ten times better than?"

Much like NES Gauntlet, Hammerwatch has you playing the role of a select number of heroes set to traverse through 12 floors on a quest.There are six character classes ;Paladin ,Wizard ,Ranger ,Thief ,Priest, & Warlock. Each sporting their own normal & special attacks.Upgrading abilities & obtaining new ones come from vendors. Wiith no armor upgrades the gold & silver you find is spend only on ability & skill upgrades. Not the usual but it works with hammerwatches pacing.

Each act comes with a host of traps,secrets, enemies,mini bosses and bosses alike.The music changes as well match the floors theme.There is a toggable overlay minimap, save points can be found throughout each floor & the game autosaves between floors.Up to 4 people can play via online or local with hosted servers easy to find via a lobby.Direct ip hosting is available with a host of difficulty tweaks the hoster can choose or not. No native voice chat, but ingame text exists via hitting enter button.

The game comes with controller support,mod support,mod tools, & steam workshop making getting mods simple. Graphics are well done,ost is good, A.I. is challenging. For a fun game that you can enjoy with 4 people it's a must have for any co-oper.Best thing? No need to port forward for majority of people \o/. Get full price, or on sale, either way its a great fun game.

Hammerwatch is a game that feels like an old school (and intentionally looks like one) hack-and-slash game similar to Gauntlet. The story consists of one box of text at the beginning: "The small bridge broke behind you...there is probably no way out!" From there, your job is to kill and collect anything in your path and stay alive. When I was younger I used to play the hell out of the Nintendo 64 version of Gauntlet, it was fun when I took on the levels alone, but things really got going when a friend or three joined. Hammerwatch is similar. Due to the non-existent story, your motivation for moving forward is take your selected character from a choice of a Paladin, Warlock, Wizard and Ranger and take them to the end.

Playing alone, Hammerwatch is fun enough, fighting large groups of enemies as a lone Ranger, wiping out hundreds of bugs and creatures. The first act of the game is quite lengthy, where the constant killing and exploring for secrets slowly turns into looking for the way out. Fortunately there are save points around the world so when I began to burn out I could come back later refreshed and ready to go on. There are RPG elements in the game in the form of upgrading your attacks and adding in combos. At times I forgot that I could alter my skills, as it felt way too long between finding the vendors that I can purchase the skills from. Initially you have a basic attack and a special attack that feeds off of your magic meter. With combos added you gain bonuses such as health regeneration after killing 10 enemies in short time.

Going with old style pixel art, Hammerwatch pulls it off well and feels like a game you could have been playing in the 90's. The music works as well. For controls you can use the keyboard or controller. I recommend using a controller if you have one over using the keyboard. Not that the keyboard is a bad way to play, but I found dual sticks the way to go.

Playing co-op can be done by sharing the same screen or online. If you can, plug your computer/laptop up to a TV or have a big screen - sharing a screen can be good fun with a group of friends together. Online is great for if your friends aren't nearby or it's hard to get people together. The online experience isn't always smooth, there is stutter at times and a few graphical hiccups but neither really impact on the game and really I can't remember the last time I played an online game that ran super smooth so it's hard to knock Hammerwatch for the same.

If you feel that you are up to some level editing that is available too, you can tailor make levels that you and your friends will enjoy. If you just want to make the game harder or easier there are sliders to adjust.

There's not much to dislike about Hammerwatch unless you hate having fun, it's a fun Gauntlet style game; great fun with two to four people and fun enough playing it alone. Combined with some nice 'retro' visuals and good music to quest to, with the game editor you shouldn't run out of content anytime soon.

Hammerwatch came out just a few years ago via steam's greenlight and is extremely good. It offers you exactly what you would expect from hack and slash genre plus a few extra things. I am yet to find more enjoyable game where all you do is run around and kill stuff. The secret areas are a different thing though.

I believe this is my first game of its genre and I must say I enjoyed it a lot. There are 6 classes to choose from. All give you different abilities and game strategies. There are no skill trees, instead you can purchase your skills and stats from the shopkeepers during the game. There are different possible combos for every class. You will have to look for hidden doors, which is not always easy. Sometimes you have to go around 1 level a few times to actually see everything and find out if something moved due to your actions. Game keeps you in pace. Closer to the end the pace of killing enemies and you dying becomes a bit faster. I must say that the game is actually not frustrating at all. You enjoy every gold coin you find to spend on yourself.

The sound is very not friendly to new users. You have to install a program yourself, which is actually located in the files, but it does not tell you where and why. Without sound this game would actually suck. But, once you get it going it's just amazing. It makes the gameplay so much better and gives you a feel of really old game. I found a bug, when you get to special are the sound from previous area plays together with the new area's sound. Otherwise, the music is very pleasant and I have not grown tired of it at all.

Graphically the game looks like it was made for SEGA during 90's, but it's still a modern game. You can actually adjust the post effects so that you game looks not even 90's but 80's. You can get a rounded yellowish screen, how about that for a change on your nice flat screen huh? Everything you see is perfectly understandable and there are no visuals artifacts because the graphics are so simple. In all, graphical solution adds up to the feel you get while playing Hammerwatch.

Controlls in general are a fine, but can be a bit wonky for some classes like range for example. Shooting and walking can be a bit of nuisance sometimes. There's only like 8 buttons to push, so you should be fine with any character to be honest.

Replayabilty is under question. I guess once you finish the game with every class there's not much to do unless you gather friends to play online.

In the end the game is so good for the offered price. I would even say that buying the game at a full price is not going to disappoint you.

Very fun game, even more fun when you play with other players who are in the same chat as you such as skype, teamspeak, ect. It takes both solo skills and team skills to win in this game. So do not be disapointed if you are vanquished on the first boss. It takes times to know everything in it

I just beat this game after 27 hours, and I haven't felt that relieved to best a game in ages. Hammerwatch has all the best bits of the old 2D age of dungeon crawling, with scant few of what was terribly bad. The game will leave you to eat through droves and droves of enemies that could easily kill you in but a second if they get closer, if you're not careful the game will beat you down with it's cruel and unforgiving policy on health recovery. If you're wise and cautious, you'll be rewarded with large swathes of treasure and the satisfying feeling you get when the enemies finally crumble before your ire.

I'd highly recommend this to any person enthusiastic about the "golden ages" of dungeon crawlers. The main campain will take at least 20 hours to clear if you search far and wide for all the secrets; and there is even an expansion offering an entire additional dungeon. The game may only sport 8 stages, but they will take more than a bit of effort to clear.

Hammerwatch is a very addictive hack and slash, multiplayer dungeon crawler. Fun singleplayer, Amazing with friends! The game provides 6 classes, Paladin, Wizard, Ranger, Warlock, Thief, and Priest. Once you have you and your friend(s) playing the game, each and every one of you can pick one or the same class and just talking and killing monsters with skype is just a hilarious time. Overall it's a very unique and amazing game. Would spend another 15+ hours on this easily.

If you run a HackTop or a CrapTop and need a multiplayer co-op to mess with, this is your destiny.It plays like the old Gauntlet game, not the new one with updated graphics. Get this game.This does not need any crazy 2015 computer hardware. I play this game with four friends on a 2004 Dell Latitude, 2.0Ghz 4gb RAM integrated graphics, at coffee shops on the crappiest bandwidths.I have a horrible mouse for traveling so I stay away from the mouse games.This one strictly works the keys.I think it is hella fun by myself and even better with friends, Dude grab a 4 pack ASAP.You won't be disappointed. Just don't get lost in the game.

+The game has 6 main characters: paladin, ranger, wizard, warlock, priest and thief. Each character has their own unique combat traits, skills and passive abilities. Playing with different characters to see how they play differently is part of the fun. Collecting gold throughout the game allows you to unlock new skills and abilities from shop vendors.

+The main game is split into 4 acts. Each act contains 3 dungeon levels. Each level contains a seal that you have to unlock to fight the boss for each act. Every level on the dungeon contains secrets and hidden passage ways. Exploring and finding these secrets is rewarding.

+The bonus campaign is handled differently and just as fun. This bonus campaign is much less linear and allows you travel back to previously visited levels, it is also much harder. Sadly, you cannot transfer your main character to this campaign.

+The game pushes a ton of enemies on screen. The pixelated graphics work really well in that regard.

+Cool boss battles

+Steam workshop support means there are plenty of custom maps you can play

+The multiplayer community is still active and I was always able to find and join a game easily.

The Average

-difficulty achievements do not stack

The Bad

- The game can get very repetitive at times. Unlike most ARPG's this game doesn't have a robust character creation making things somewhat boring after awhile. This game has no loot providing little incentive to kill all the enemies. I found myself playing in short sessions simply because the game play formula started to wear thin the farther I went along.

Conclusion

This is a game you play to try out different characters that fit your play style and then kill wave after wave of enemy as you progress through the level. If that excites you then this is a game for you. This game is ARPG lite and for the most part, works very well but if you are looking for something with a bit more depth you may be disappointed with what this game has to offer.

This is a 'perfect game', the old school feel is balanced out very nicely by permissive difficulty settings that make it playable for small children and challenging for the most seasoned gamers, something which you almost never find!The pixelated graphics don't feel clíche or forced and the whole thing feels quite natural with an extremely eddictive edge akin to games like Diablo or Torchlight.Each of the playable characters has a very different play-style and make for at least 6 playthroughs of the vanilla campaign before trying anything on the Steam Workshop. The levels are MASSIVE and once or twice had me surprised at the scale and complexity of the labyrinths.My only minor complaint would be the amount of back-tracking you have to do to solve some puzzles on the packaged levels but in general it's negligable. I highly recommend this game.

This is a very pretty game. I love the pixel work here, it's perfect! It's an excellent dungeon crawler with great mechanics and maps, although the maps can be confusing.

PROS:Beautiful designsGreat mechanicsMulitplayerMultiple character optionsVery functional maps... and more

CONS:You need to find planks to rebuild a bridge, but they're very hard to find and you need to explore the entire map to find them sometimes.You'll need some patienceSometimes crashes and doesn't launch properly, freezing at log in screen

OVERALL: I recommend this if you're a pixel art and dungeon crawler fan. It's a fun game if you have the patience for it :)

tl;dr -> Play this with friends and leave them to die when the enemy mobs get too overwhelming. 11/10 great friendship tester.

A very generous friend gifted this to me, and I found a satisfying cooperative multiplayer experience.

If you like old-school dungeon crawlers (arcade-style), light RPG elements, and cooperative action, then you will enjoy this game.

The aesthetics are good - the amount of detail in the levels and character models is decent. The various skill effects are also nice. In fact, there is enough detail in the levels to reward explorers and those with attention-to-detail - there are a large amount of secret areas to find. The music is very good and reminds me of Japanese-RPGs.

The controls are simple and easy to familiarize yourself with. Personally, I prefer using a controller, but the game is perfectly playable with a keyboard & mouse. There is no tutorial, however, information stones will give you enough information whenever a new gameplay element is introduced. The learning curve is minimal to moderate depending on your experience with dungeon crawlers - one of the most difficult parts of the game is being able to effectively micro and dodge enemy attacks (especially since you will encounter endless amounts of mobs throughout the levels). The game plays a lot better if you are playing multiplayer, but singleplayer mode is still a lot of fun.

Gameplay consists of you navigating through (what seems to be) non-randomized levels, killing enemies and picking up many collectibles like gold, keys (bronze, silver, gold), health and mana, and a variety of other things. There are secret rooms that may give level shortcuts, allowing you to bypass a decent section of the map. The game is fairly linear, however, it really rewards exploration. You will encounter merchants that provide mana/health bonuses, combo enhancements (achieve a kill combo to produce numerous effects), new abilities, etc. These merchants will offer you a % discount based on how many shop tokens you have, and many of these are located in secret areas and secondary routes. There are also a number of puzzles and traps, requiring you to manipulate pressure blocks most of the time in different ways.

There are different classes to play, easily warranting multiple playthroughs. This also makes playing with a group lots of fun because watching the different abilities massacring mobs of enemies can be really satisfying. There is some varying degree of difficulty depending on who you choose to play as. For example, the thief deals massive melee damage, but is also extremely weak with low health. The warlock (my favorite) has a melee attack that also poisons the target, causing damage over time and a weak explosion upon death. He starts off with a chain lightning ability for clearing mobs.

The variety of shop upgrades offers a bit of strategic diversity. For example, one of the first upgrades is a combo enhancement - so achieving 10 consecutive kills will cause your character to move faster and deal more damage (very short amount of time). You can then upgrade things like health and mana, or you can choose to make your combo timer longer. You can also buy things like bonuses to offence (a rapid-fire nova when you achieve a combo), or a healing buff instead. Upgrades are initially expensive, so exploring a lot will help you upgrade effectively - especially when you find more shop discount tokens.

Overall, the game is a lot of fun - especially if you play with other people. If you are the least bit interested in the dungeon crawling genre, then you must give this a try.

One of my all time favourites spent very long straining my arms for just that bit more gold to upgrade and beat some monsters (not a bad thing) arms still hurt while writing this (no lie XD this is gonna be short because of pains :P). Highly recommend especcially when on sale please, just buy and have fun, two compaigns (as of this review) survival, defence and not to mention endless workshop maps, 4 player fun. 11/10 Dont regret any minute of this game.

If you are looking for a good solid rogue-like game, then search no more! This game has everything from 2 solid campaigns, drop-in-play matches, fun and challenging character classes to learn, varying difficulties, multiplayer co-op, and even user made content which is also very enjoyable!

I have played a handful of rogue-like games and this one by far is the most enjoyable one I have played. I would highly recommend you pick this up if you are itching for a solid rogue-like game.

If you do decide to get this, I would recommend you play it with a controller, it makes it that much more enjoyable, but it is entirely playable with the keyboard. Also grab some friends to join you, it is a lot more fun learning and failing with friends!

Hammer watch is the third best game about hammers ive have ever played, however I would argue that there is a distinct lack of watches, once playing this game I felt very a deep seated connection, it spoke to me on a spirtual level and I honestly felt like I met God and transcended to the heavens above where apon being there God spoke to me and said, "Tom rate this game for it is the third best game about hammers I have ever played", and so his will was done and I wrote this review.